If the issue of child grooming within some muslim communities is publicly recognised as a cultural problem by muslims themselves, then why are the British authorities so reluctant to address the problem?

Mohammed Shafiq and Alyas Karmani, the kind of people I’m happy to live in the same country as.

We are happy to recognise a cultural problem within the Catholic church and the Church of England, why not in Muslim communities ? Surely it would be racist not to treat all groups exactly the same ?

Mr Shafiq [Ramadhan Foundation] said: “There is a significant problem for the British Pakistani community, there is an over-representation amongst recent convictions in the crime of on-street grooming, there should be no silence in addressing the issue of race as this is central to the actions of these criminals.

“They think that white teenage girls are worthless and can be abused without a second thought; it is this sort of behaviour that is bringing shame on our community.

“I urge the police and the councils not to be frightened to address this issue, there is a strong lesson that you cannot ignore race or be over sensitive.”

He added: “I have been overwhelmed by the support the Ramadhan Foundation has been given by young people for our campaign on child grooming but concerned that community elders are once again burying their heads in the sand, this concerns us all and we must speak out.

“The community elders need to learn from the reaction of young people and reject any attempt to silence the reaction from our community.

“We have over the past 12 months seen tremendous progress, more Imams have spoken out in Friday sermons; workshops and activities for young people have happened in the community and there is a strong commitment to see this work through.

“We encourage local authorities and schools to learn from Rochdale where over 9,000 teenagers have attended a workshop on child grooming.

“The Ramadhan Foundation is ready to stand with anyone who wishes to protect these young teenagers.” He said the police would need to “reflect on their failures” in this case.

“Finally the far right and fascist movements are not welcome to Rochdale, we reject their division and hatred and it has no place in a tolerant and diverse society.

“We will learn lessons from this case but not allow outsiders to divide us,” Mr Shafiq added.

He [Alyas Karmani – ‘Together Against Grooming’] is addressing the question of whether a disproportionate number of British Asian men are involved in grooming underage girls for sex. He thinks the answer is “Yes” – which is also very plain-speaking on a subject around which the British policing, political, academic and social work establishment dances with over-sensitive diplomacy.

Yet Imam Karmani is no maverick. As well as being an imam, he is a psychologist with more than 20 years of practical experience in youth and community work. He is a former adviser to the Department for Education on youth empowerment and a one-time head of race equality for the Welsh Assembly and is now co-director of Street, a project whose name stands for Strategy to Reach, Empower and Educate Teenagers.

If you’re going to profile a certain type of paedophile then primary school teacher, scout leader, and junior football team manager would tick a few boxes.

Hopefully, men from Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex who know something about the offending of Christopher Dobson will come forward. He’s dead so there will be no trial but it will help the police and may result in ‘friends’ of Mr Dobson who are still alive and perhaps still abusing children, be identified.

Child sex abuse images were found during a house viewing by potential buyers at the home of a dead teacher.

Police are now investigating alleged offences by Christopher Dobson, whose home in Chapel Road, Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex, was put up for sale.

Mr Dobson, who was involved in youth football, died aged 70 in 2012.

Det Ch Insp Mark Hall said he believed Mr Dobson committed serious offences over a period of years, with police now aiming to indentify victims.

The images were discovered in August after Mr Dobson’s next-of-kin decided to sell the property. The retired teacher died the previous December.

The very fact that the police wish to emphasise that those alleged to have been involved were from “a range of communities”, should be a clear indication that this is primarily another Muslim grooming ring with a few people arrested outside of that community. The police just don’t want a rise in racial tensions.

There is a serious problem in the UK with a certain type of Muslim from the rural tribal areas of Pakistan who have zero respect for non-muslim girls in this country.

Below is the updated story and below that is an excellent interview which explains the major problem with these Muslim grooming rings and describes the warning signs parents should look out for.

This situation can no longer be brushed under the carpet. The longer the authorities fail to address the underlying problem, for fear of stoking racial tensions, the greater the chance that white communities will take the law into their own hands. Something concrete needs to be seen to be done to reassure the majority. The police are trying to pretend there is not an issue but the majority in these communities will eventually come to believe that the police are deceiving them and protecting the people who are preying on their daughters and that could bring about the very situation the police are hoping to avoid with only one difference, the majority will no longer trust the police as they will blame them for covering up the problem.

A total of 27 people have now been arrested on Tyneside on suspicion of conspiracy to rape.

The investigation, Operation Sanctuary, concerns allegations of sexual assault involving teenage girls and young women – some in local authority care.

Since Monday, 27 houses in the Newcastle, Gateshead and South Tyneside areas have been searched.

One man arrested earlier continues to be held, but 24 other men and two women have since been bailed.

Northumbria Police said those alleged to have been involved were from “a range of communities”.

OK, the title is sarcastic but surely I can’t be the only one who finds it ironic that the Judge, on the first day of William Roache’s child abuse trial, told the jury that they must distinguish between the actor and the fictional character Ken Barlow and yet the defense have called Roache’s on screen wife and son as defense witnesses?

From 14th January

A judge tells jurors that they have to distinguish between Coronation Street actor William Roache, who is on trial accused of sex offences, and his fictional character Ken Barlow.

Mr Justice Holroyde QC said they should not confuse the “real person” and the part he has played on the ITV soap opera for more than half a century.

Actors from Coronation Street have arrived to give evidence in the trial of fellow star William Roache, who is accused of a string of sexual offences.

Anne Kirkbride, who as Deirdre Barlow is on-screen wife to Roache’s character Ken Barlow, Chris Gascoyne – his son Peter Barlow in the ITV soap – and actress Helen Worth, who plays Gail Platt, are expected to give evidence in Roache’s defence.

Roache, 81, denies two counts of raping a 15-year-old girl in east Lancashire in 1967, and four indecent assaults involving four girls aged between 11 or 12 and 16 in the Manchester area in 1965 and 1968.

This was the case with the two female accomplices in the Ian Watkins case and it was also the case more recently after the conviction of Rodney Joseph Campbell from Sperrin Road in Limavady, Northern Ireland who pleaded guilty to 18 charges of sexual abuse on January 8th and who was jailed for 12 years for what the judge described as “a depraved and humiliating period of sexual and physical abuse”.

He could not be named because by doing so his victim might be identified. It is only because the victim has waived her right to anonymity that Rodney Joseph Campbell, 44, is able to be named now.

The brave victim instructed her solicitor to apply for the anonymity order in relation to her to be lifted.

In response Judge Philip Babington explained:

“There is no such thing as an anonymity order.

“Injured parties have the statutory right in sexual cases to have their identity protected.

“They automatically have a life-long right to anonymity.

“Defendants do not have that right but the Press are under a statutory duty not to do anything that might identify the injured party.

“But it is my view that if a complainant, as has happened in two other recent cases in this court, wishes to waive her right to anonymity, it is her right.

“Therefore if the media wish to name the defendant in this case there is nothing I can do about it unless there is an application from the defendant, for example in respect of his human rights.

“The application is therefore granted which means as the complainant has waived her right to anonymity she can be named and it means the defendant can be named,”

Of course, just because the victim has waived her right to anonymity so that Rodney Joseph Campbell can be named, it doesn’t mean that the press should name the victim, as I’ve seen one MSM outlet do.

Where is the public interest ?

An anonymity order has been lifted on a man who subjected a homeless teenage girl to what a judge described as a depraved and humiliating period of sexual and physical abuse.

Rodney Joseph Campbell, 44, of Sperrin Road in Limavady, was jailed for 12 years earlier this month.

His name can be published because his victim waived her right to anonymity.